Publisher's summary
Alexander Cleave, actor, has left his career and his family behind and banished himself to his childhood home. He wants to retire from life, but finds this impossible in a house brimming with presences, some ghostly, some undeniably human. Memories, anxiety for the future, and more particularly, for his beloved but troubled daughter, conspire to distract him from his dreaming retirement.
This humane and beautifully written story tells the tragic tale of a man, intelligent, preposterous, and vulnerable, who in attempting to bring the performance to a close, finds himself travelling inevitably towards a devastating denouement.
Related to this topic
-
The Blue Guitar
- A Novel
- By: John Banville
- Narrated by: Gerry O'Brien
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the Booker Prize-winning author of The Sea and Ancient Light, a new novel - at once trenchant, witty, and shattering - about the intricacies of artistic creation and theft, and about the ways in which we learn to possess one another and to hold on to ourselves. Equally self-aggrandizing and self-deprecating, our narrator, Oliver Otway Orme, is a painter of some renown and a petty thief who does not steal for profit and has never before been caught.
-
-
Masterful
- By Amazon customer on 11-25-15
By: John Banville
-
The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov
- By: Vladimir Nabokov
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 31 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From Vladimir Nabokov, the writer who shocked and delighted the world with his novels Lolita, Pale Fire, and Ada, or Ardor, comes a magnificent collection of stories. Written between the 1920s and the 1950s, these 68 tales — 14 of which have been translated into English for the first time - display all the shades of Nabokov’s imagination.
-
-
A Kaleidoscope of Nabokov Bábochkas
- By Darwin8u on 01-11-15
By: Vladimir Nabokov
-
The Unseen
- A Novel
- By: Katherine Webb
- Narrated by: Clare Wille
- Length: 15 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A vicar with a passion for nature, the Reverend Albert Canning leads a happy existence with his naive wife, Hester, in their sleepy Berkshire village in the year 1911. But as the English summer dawns, the Cannings' lives are forever changed by two new arrivals: Cat, their new maid, a disaffected, free-spirited young woman sent down from London after entanglements with the law; and Robin Durrant, a leading expert in the occult, enticed by tales of elemental beings in the water meadows nearby.
-
-
Great book!
- By Dana on 09-03-12
By: Katherine Webb
-
The Essex Serpent
- A Novel
- By: Sarah Perry
- Narrated by: Juanita McMahon
- Length: 14 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Cora Seaborne's brilliant, domineering husband dies, she steps into her new life as a widow with as much relief as sadness: her marriage was not a happy one. Wed at 19, this woman of exceptional intelligence and curiosity was ill-suited for the role of society wife. Seeking refuge in fresh air and open space in the wake of the funeral, Cora leaves London for a visit to coastal Essex, accompanied by her inquisitive and obsessive 11-year old son, Francis, and the boy's nanny, Martha.
-
-
Unbearable Narrator
- By ACB on 06-08-17
By: Sarah Perry
-
Fear
- By: L. Ron Hubbard
- Narrated by: Roddy McDowall
- Length: 2 hrs and 56 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Professor James Lowry didn’t believe in spirits, or witches, or demons. Not until a gentle spring evening when his hat disappeared, and suddenly he couldn’t remember the last four hours of his life. Now, the quiet university town of Atworthy is changing - slightly at first, then faster and more frighteningly each time he tries to remember.
-
-
The Best of Hubbard
- By JJ on 01-31-15
By: L. Ron Hubbard
-
Haunted
- David Ash Series, Book 1
- By: James Herbert
- Narrated by: Steven Pacey
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A ghostly twist. Three nights of terror at the house called Edbrook. Three nights in which David Ash, there to investigate a haunting, will be victim of horrifying games. Three nights in which he will face the blood-chilling enigma of his own past. Three hideous nights before Edbrook's dreadful secret will be revealed...And the true nightmare will begin.to the surface, tormenting him, refusing to let him rest. The memory of what he once had been.
-
-
Wait For It-----Wait For It
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 11-09-13
By: James Herbert
-
The Blue Guitar
- A Novel
- By: John Banville
- Narrated by: Gerry O'Brien
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the Booker Prize-winning author of The Sea and Ancient Light, a new novel - at once trenchant, witty, and shattering - about the intricacies of artistic creation and theft, and about the ways in which we learn to possess one another and to hold on to ourselves. Equally self-aggrandizing and self-deprecating, our narrator, Oliver Otway Orme, is a painter of some renown and a petty thief who does not steal for profit and has never before been caught.
-
-
Masterful
- By Amazon customer on 11-25-15
By: John Banville
-
The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov
- By: Vladimir Nabokov
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 31 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From Vladimir Nabokov, the writer who shocked and delighted the world with his novels Lolita, Pale Fire, and Ada, or Ardor, comes a magnificent collection of stories. Written between the 1920s and the 1950s, these 68 tales — 14 of which have been translated into English for the first time - display all the shades of Nabokov’s imagination.
-
-
A Kaleidoscope of Nabokov Bábochkas
- By Darwin8u on 01-11-15
By: Vladimir Nabokov
-
The Unseen
- A Novel
- By: Katherine Webb
- Narrated by: Clare Wille
- Length: 15 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A vicar with a passion for nature, the Reverend Albert Canning leads a happy existence with his naive wife, Hester, in their sleepy Berkshire village in the year 1911. But as the English summer dawns, the Cannings' lives are forever changed by two new arrivals: Cat, their new maid, a disaffected, free-spirited young woman sent down from London after entanglements with the law; and Robin Durrant, a leading expert in the occult, enticed by tales of elemental beings in the water meadows nearby.
-
-
Great book!
- By Dana on 09-03-12
By: Katherine Webb
-
The Essex Serpent
- A Novel
- By: Sarah Perry
- Narrated by: Juanita McMahon
- Length: 14 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Cora Seaborne's brilliant, domineering husband dies, she steps into her new life as a widow with as much relief as sadness: her marriage was not a happy one. Wed at 19, this woman of exceptional intelligence and curiosity was ill-suited for the role of society wife. Seeking refuge in fresh air and open space in the wake of the funeral, Cora leaves London for a visit to coastal Essex, accompanied by her inquisitive and obsessive 11-year old son, Francis, and the boy's nanny, Martha.
-
-
Unbearable Narrator
- By ACB on 06-08-17
By: Sarah Perry
-
Fear
- By: L. Ron Hubbard
- Narrated by: Roddy McDowall
- Length: 2 hrs and 56 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Professor James Lowry didn’t believe in spirits, or witches, or demons. Not until a gentle spring evening when his hat disappeared, and suddenly he couldn’t remember the last four hours of his life. Now, the quiet university town of Atworthy is changing - slightly at first, then faster and more frighteningly each time he tries to remember.
-
-
The Best of Hubbard
- By JJ on 01-31-15
By: L. Ron Hubbard
-
Haunted
- David Ash Series, Book 1
- By: James Herbert
- Narrated by: Steven Pacey
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A ghostly twist. Three nights of terror at the house called Edbrook. Three nights in which David Ash, there to investigate a haunting, will be victim of horrifying games. Three nights in which he will face the blood-chilling enigma of his own past. Three hideous nights before Edbrook's dreadful secret will be revealed...And the true nightmare will begin.to the surface, tormenting him, refusing to let him rest. The memory of what he once had been.
-
-
Wait For It-----Wait For It
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 11-09-13
By: James Herbert
-
Life Class
- By: Pat Barker
- Narrated by: Russell Boulter
- Length: 7 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the spring of 1914, a group of young students gather in an art studio for a life-drawing class. Paul Tarrant and Elinor Brooke are two components of a love triangle, and at the outset of the war, they turn to each other. After volunteering for the Red Cross, Paul must confront the fact that life, love, and art will never be the same for him.
-
-
In Love and War
- By Cariola on 07-28-09
By: Pat Barker
-
The Distant Hours
- By: Kate Morton
- Narrated by: Caroline Lee
- Length: 22 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Edie Burchill and her mother have never been close, but when a long lost letter arrives one Sunday afternoon with the return address of Milderhurst Castle, Kent, printed on its envelope, Edie begins to suspect that her mother’s emotional distance masks an old secret.
-
-
Right Mood At The Right Time
- By Simone on 11-13-12
By: Kate Morton
-
Bride of the Rat God
- By: Barbara Hambly
- Narrated by: Marguerite Gavin
- Length: 11 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1923, and silent film reigns in Hollywood. Of all the starlets, none is more beloved than Chrysanda Flamande, a diva as brilliant as she is difficult to manage. Handling her falls to Norah, widow of Chrysanda’s dead brother. She has always done her job well, but she was never equipped to deal with murder. When a violent killing shocks Chrysanda’s entourage, and other weird happenings swiftly follow, Norah begins to suspect that some strange power is stalking the star. In Chinatown she receives warning that a curse has been placed on the actress as vengeance for wearing a sacred amulet in one of her films.
-
-
fun mix of fantasy and 1920s Hollywood
- By Kindle Customer on 11-11-14
By: Barbara Hambly
-
Fludd
- A Novel
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Gordon Griffin
- Length: 6 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One dark and stormy night in 1956, a stranger named Fludd mysteriously turns up in the dismal village of Fetherhoughton. He is the curate sent by the bishop to assist Father Angwin - or is he? In the most unlikely of places, a superstitious town that understands little of romance or sentimentality, where bad blood between neighbors is ancient and impenetrable, miracles begin to bloom. Fludd becomes lover, gravedigger, and savior, transforming his dull office into a golden regency of decision, unashamed sensation, and unprecedented action.
-
-
Small, tight irreverant novel that wryly inverts
- By Darwin8u on 07-21-13
By: Hilary Mantel
-
Laughter in the Dark
- By: Vladimir Nabokov
- Narrated by: Luke Daniels
- Length: 5 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Albinus, a respectable, middle-aged man and aspiring filmmaker, abandons his wife for a lover half his age: Margot, who wants to become a movie star. When Albinus introduces her to Rex, an American movie producer, disaster ensues. What emerges is an elegantly sardonic and irresistibly ironic novel of desire, deceit, and deception, a curious romance set in the film world of Berlin in the 1930s.
-
-
Death is often the point of life's joke
- By Darwin8u on 05-19-13
By: Vladimir Nabokov
-
Tea with the Black Dragon
- Black Dragon, Book 1
- By: R. A. MacAvoy
- Narrated by: Megan Hayes
- Length: 5 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Martha Macnamara knows that her daughter, Elizabeth, is in trouble; she just doesn't know what kind. Mysterious phone calls from San Francisco at odd hours of the night are the only contact she has had with Elizabeth for years. Now, Elizabeth has sent her a plane ticket and reserved a room for her at San Francisco's most luxurious hotel. Yet she has not tried to contact Martha since she arrived, leaving her lonely, confused, and a little bit worried. Into the story steps Mayland Long, a distinguished-looking and wealthy Chinese man who lives at the hotel and is drawn to Martha's good nature and ability to pinpoint the truth of a matter.
-
-
My favorite dragon book
- By Ellenaeddy on 08-08-15
By: R. A. MacAvoy
-
Secrets of Nanreath Hall
- A Novel
- By: Alix Rickloff
- Narrated by: Lauren Irwin, Laura Waddell
- Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cornwall, 1940. Back in England after the harrowing evacuation at Dunkirk, WWII Red Cross nurse Anna Trenowyth is shocked to learn her adoptive parents, Graham and Prue Handley, have been killed in an air raid. She desperately needs their advice, as she's been assigned to the military hospital that has set up camp inside her biological mother's childhood home - Nanreath Hall. Anna was just six years old when her mother, Lady Katherine Trenowyth, died. All she has left are vague memories that tease her with clues she can't unravel.
-
-
Well done both narrators and Author !
- By Andover Meadow on 09-17-16
By: Alix Rickloff
-
The Ballad of the Sad Café
- By: Carson McCullers
- Narrated by: David Ledoux, Joe Barrett, Therese Plummer, and others
- Length: 5 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A classic work that has charmed generations of readers, this collection assembles Carson McCullers' best stories, including her beloved novella The Ballad of the Sad Cafe. A haunting tale of a human triangle that culminates in an astonishing brawl, the novella introduces readers to Miss Amelia, a formidable southern woman whose cafe serves as the town's gathering place. Among other fine works, the collection also includes "Wunderkind", McCullers' first published story, written when she was only 17, about a musical prodigy who suddenly realizes she will not go on to become a great pianist.
-
-
Literate short stories
- By RueRue on 02-23-16
By: Carson McCullers
-
The Damnation Game
- By: Clive Barker
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 16 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Marty Strauss, a gambling addict recently released from prison, is hired to be the personal bodyguard of Joseph Whitehead, one of the wealthiest men in the world. The job proves more complicated and dangerous than he thought, however, as Marty soon gets caught up in a series of supernatural events involving Whitehead, his daughter (who is a heroin addict), and a devilish man named Mamoulian, with whom Whitehead made a Faustian bargain many years earlier, during World War II.
-
-
Damned If You Do
- By Wag The Fox on 04-05-14
By: Clive Barker
-
The Janissary Tree
- A Novel
- By: Jason Goodwin
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1836. Europe is modernizing, and the Ottoman Empire must follow suit. But just before the sultan announces sweeping changes, a wave of murders threatens the balance of power in his court. Who is behind them? Only one intelligence agent can be trusted to find out: Yashim Togalu, a man both brilliant and near-invisible in this world. You see, Yashim is a eunuch.
-
-
Interesting premise, annoying narrator
- By Phillipa Somerville on 09-18-07
By: Jason Goodwin
-
The Mermaid and Mrs. Hancock
- A Novel
- By: Imogen Hermes Gowar
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 17 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1780s London, a prosperous merchant finds his quiet life upended when he unexpectedly receives an unusual creature - and meets a most extraordinary woman - in this much-lauded, atmospheric debut that examines our capacity for wonder, obsession, and desire. One September evening in 1785, Jonah Hancock hears an urgent knocking on his front door near the docks of London. The captain of one of Jonah’s trading vessels is waiting eagerly on the front step, bearing shocking news. On a voyage to the Far East, he sold the Jonah’s ship for something rare and far more precious: a mermaid.
-
-
Gave up
- By Isabella Piestrzynska on 10-27-18
-
Named of the Dragon
- By: Susanna Kearsley
- Narrated by: Katherine Kellgren
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The charm of spending the Christmas holidays in South Wales, with its crumbling castles and ancient myths, seems the perfect distraction from the nightmares that have plagued literary agent Lyn Ravenshaw since the loss of her baby five years ago. Instead she meets an emotionally fragile young widow who's convinced that Lyn's recurring dreams have drawn her to Castle Farm for an important purpose - and she's running out of time.
-
-
Not Kearsley's best
- By Sindy on 06-27-16
By: Susanna Kearsley
What listeners say about Eclipse
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jeff Lacy
- 04-12-18
Well cast narrator and lush writing
Bill Wallis gives an entertaining and fully considered narrative performance; he was cast well. This audible will enhance one’s appreciation of Banville’s fine novel whether one is listening to the recording alone or concurrently while reading the novel (which I find helpful and entertaining). This is a poignant story. Banville’s style is contemplative, brooding. The writing is lush and regal.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
4 people found this helpful